The image of the stern museum or gallery attendant, who only speaks to stop children touching things or to direct visitors to the cafe or toilets, is long out of date.
The reality of the front-of-house role in most museums now is knowledgeable, approachable staff who act as a link rather than a barrier between the visitors and the collections. Indeed the term front-of-house has been superseded in most museums by that of visitor services to reflect the more modern approach.
Charter marks and new accreditation standards emphasise the shift from collections to public services, too, says Iain Morley, the museum and heritage service manager at Knowsley and a member of the North West Federation of Museums and Art Galleries, who plans training courses and events for visitor-facing staff. But he says the "us and them" attitude still persists within organisations.
"There is more of a divide in larger museums mainly because of the perceived delineation between roles," says Morley. "In smaller mus-
eums everyone has to pitch in and staff across the board tend to be involved in planning. It's borne out of necessity. But budget squeezes mean that larger museums are starting to make more use of the skills that exist in museums."
Morley says that any kind of change takes a long time to emerge in museums. "It can be a struggle to get management and collections staff to fully appreciate the role visitor service staff play in the museum."
Joanne Irvine, the head of museums and archives at the Bolton Museum and Archive Service, agrees that the role of visitor services staff needs to be better acknowledged. Irvine is unusual in museum management in that she has a visitor services background and supports staff who want to cross over.
"I've always tried to give them a bigger say," she says. "But career progression has been a stumbling block. More visitor services people need to be represented on the senior management team. We've been doing this at Bolton for about five years. It's about creating a structure."
She says they word adverts carefully, asking for 'experience' or equivalent qualification. "This is really important as it allows people to feel they can learn and develop. It's a slow process because it's a culture change."
The stumbling blocks need to be acknowledged from the top down, says Irvine. "For example, visitor services staff could be more involved in forward planning, but it's not always easy to get cover for the front-desk staff so they can attend meetings."
And she says there is still resistance from the traditional curatorial side. "It's getting better. The role of curators is changing, and they are becoming more visitor focused. It's about capturing and sharing that fantastic amount of knowledge."
Bolton has introduced the Working Together initiative, where visitor services staff shadow collections staff two days a week for a month. A curator or educator is teamed with a museum assistant. Each team member can choose an area, such as conservation, social history, archives or administration.
"The museum assistant benefits from the curator's knowledge, but the curators can also benefit from the assistant's grassroots knowledge," says Irvine.
Training for the job
Dave McNabb is the museum services manager at Bolton. He manages the museum assistants and is the head of retail. McNabb started out as an attendant nine years ago and became a museum assistant in 2000.
"It's not about qualifications, it's about personality. We are here to animate the inanimate. The museum is a melting pot of ages and cultures, and we are on the frontline of making people feel inspired to want to know more and to visit more often."
He says the job is becoming more of a springboard. "My staff want training to enhance their skills. Even if they are not worried about career prospects, they still want job satisfaction. There's nothing better than when a visitor looks you in the eye and tells you it's been brilliant."
Training is a key issue. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery was one of the first museums to offer the NVQ in museums, galleries and heritage (heritage care and visitor services), which is run in conjunction with Warwickshire College. Visitor assistant Derek Turner spent 12 months getting this qualification.
"I worked at BT for many years and so was used to talking to the public, but the qualification has given me more confidence. The changing attitudes in museums reflect changes in life in general. People expect a lot more and we have to be able to respond to enquiries across the whole spectrum," says Turner.
Added value
Turner, and colleagues Jo Chadaway and Jane Howell, all say they feel valued and respected by management. "There is a lot more scope for training and personal development," says Chadaway. "We are part of the weekly team briefing and are talked through current projects. It's a really supportive relationship."
Howell has a floating post as museum assistant and tour guide. "The roles cross over well," she says. "I often use the knowledge I've gleaned as a tour guide when I chat to visitors about the collections and forthcoming exhibitions.
"And my role as a visitor assistant also informs the tour guide work. I know about health and safety requirements, the complexities of the building, and how the museum works."
Howell says the management have been sympathetic and have released her from post if a group needs a guide. "They are generous in their praise and there's always a willingness to make things work."
Renaissance North West, a partnership between the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council North West and the North West Museums Hub, created a training programme after a skills needs audit revealed visitor services staff had weaknesses in areas including recruiting, managing volunteers, basic collections care, and business skills such as income generation.
Thirty sessions were provided free to all museum professionals. More than 50 per cent of the delegates for the session A Basic Introduction to Collections Care were from a visitor services or a volunteer background.
The Wordsworth Trust in the Lake District is known for its unique volunteer scheme, which gives valuable across the board experience.
"It's more like an internship," says curator Jeff Cowton. "We have around 15 interns, who spend time invigilating, taking tours, in the shop, and also in specialist areas such as collections, conservation and marketing. They get practical experience of a real work environment. I know it's a great all-round experience because it's how I started 25 years ago."
From spring 2008 the Wordsworth Trust is restructuring its intern programme. "They will have the same holistic experience," says Cowton, "but will all start more or less together instead of having everyone starting and finishing at different times. This way they can work on complete projects and get an understanding of how the whole process works.
"It's essentially a business and you have to learn to treat your visitors well - if they didn't come, we would cease to exist. It's about survival for an independent museum."
At the opposite end of the scale, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London employs about 120 front-of-house staff. The V&A has seen a huge increase in visitors over the past six years - from less than 1 million in 2000 to over 2.5 million in the last financial year.
A large restructuring in 2003 brought together the many different visitor services roles including security, welcome, ticketing, and information provision.
"This was to create one flexible multifunctional workforce who understand and connect with the museum on many levels," explains James Wilson, training and development consultant at the V&A.
"An important part of the development is a desire to provide the best possible experience for all of our visitors and maintain standards as visitor numbers increase."
Gallery service staff receive regular training. "Every member of gallery services is encouraged to take up an NVQ in heritage care and visitor service, customer service and management," says Wilson.
The V&A's 50 in-house courses include front-of-house development; access and diversity; health and safety and security. The museum has also developed an online training portal in collaboration with Ashridge Business School.
Wilson says that it is vital that gallery service staff are fully engaged with the vision and mission of the V&A. "They are one of the most direct forms of marketing and influencing that we have. Hence the amount of investment and trust we give them."
Deborah Mulhearn is a freelance journalist.
A Welcome Change: Improving your Front-of-House is a one-day event developed by the Museums Association and Renaissance North West on 6 February at Manchester Art Gallery
The reality of the front-of-house role in most museums now is knowledgeable, approachable staff who act as a link rather than a barrier between the visitors and the collections. Indeed the term front-of-house has been superseded in most museums by that of visitor services to reflect the more modern approach.
Charter marks and new accreditation standards emphasise the shift from collections to public services, too, says Iain Morley, the museum and heritage service manager at Knowsley and a member of the North West Federation of Museums and Art Galleries, who plans training courses and events for visitor-facing staff. But he says the "us and them" attitude still persists within organisations.
"There is more of a divide in larger museums mainly because of the perceived delineation between roles," says Morley. "In smaller mus-
eums everyone has to pitch in and staff across the board tend to be involved in planning. It's borne out of necessity. But budget squeezes mean that larger museums are starting to make more use of the skills that exist in museums."
Morley says that any kind of change takes a long time to emerge in museums. "It can be a struggle to get management and collections staff to fully appreciate the role visitor service staff play in the museum."
Joanne Irvine, the head of museums and archives at the Bolton Museum and Archive Service, agrees that the role of visitor services staff needs to be better acknowledged. Irvine is unusual in museum management in that she has a visitor services background and supports staff who want to cross over.
"I've always tried to give them a bigger say," she says. "But career progression has been a stumbling block. More visitor services people need to be represented on the senior management team. We've been doing this at Bolton for about five years. It's about creating a structure."
She says they word adverts carefully, asking for 'experience' or equivalent qualification. "This is really important as it allows people to feel they can learn and develop. It's a slow process because it's a culture change."
The stumbling blocks need to be acknowledged from the top down, says Irvine. "For example, visitor services staff could be more involved in forward planning, but it's not always easy to get cover for the front-desk staff so they can attend meetings."
And she says there is still resistance from the traditional curatorial side. "It's getting better. The role of curators is changing, and they are becoming more visitor focused. It's about capturing and sharing that fantastic amount of knowledge."
Bolton has introduced the Working Together initiative, where visitor services staff shadow collections staff two days a week for a month. A curator or educator is teamed with a museum assistant. Each team member can choose an area, such as conservation, social history, archives or administration.
"The museum assistant benefits from the curator's knowledge, but the curators can also benefit from the assistant's grassroots knowledge," says Irvine.
Training for the job
Dave McNabb is the museum services manager at Bolton. He manages the museum assistants and is the head of retail. McNabb started out as an attendant nine years ago and became a museum assistant in 2000.
"It's not about qualifications, it's about personality. We are here to animate the inanimate. The museum is a melting pot of ages and cultures, and we are on the frontline of making people feel inspired to want to know more and to visit more often."
He says the job is becoming more of a springboard. "My staff want training to enhance their skills. Even if they are not worried about career prospects, they still want job satisfaction. There's nothing better than when a visitor looks you in the eye and tells you it's been brilliant."
Training is a key issue. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery was one of the first museums to offer the NVQ in museums, galleries and heritage (heritage care and visitor services), which is run in conjunction with Warwickshire College. Visitor assistant Derek Turner spent 12 months getting this qualification.
"I worked at BT for many years and so was used to talking to the public, but the qualification has given me more confidence. The changing attitudes in museums reflect changes in life in general. People expect a lot more and we have to be able to respond to enquiries across the whole spectrum," says Turner.
Added value
Turner, and colleagues Jo Chadaway and Jane Howell, all say they feel valued and respected by management. "There is a lot more scope for training and personal development," says Chadaway. "We are part of the weekly team briefing and are talked through current projects. It's a really supportive relationship."
Howell has a floating post as museum assistant and tour guide. "The roles cross over well," she says. "I often use the knowledge I've gleaned as a tour guide when I chat to visitors about the collections and forthcoming exhibitions.
"And my role as a visitor assistant also informs the tour guide work. I know about health and safety requirements, the complexities of the building, and how the museum works."
Howell says the management have been sympathetic and have released her from post if a group needs a guide. "They are generous in their praise and there's always a willingness to make things work."
Renaissance North West, a partnership between the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council North West and the North West Museums Hub, created a training programme after a skills needs audit revealed visitor services staff had weaknesses in areas including recruiting, managing volunteers, basic collections care, and business skills such as income generation.
Thirty sessions were provided free to all museum professionals. More than 50 per cent of the delegates for the session A Basic Introduction to Collections Care were from a visitor services or a volunteer background.
The Wordsworth Trust in the Lake District is known for its unique volunteer scheme, which gives valuable across the board experience.
"It's more like an internship," says curator Jeff Cowton. "We have around 15 interns, who spend time invigilating, taking tours, in the shop, and also in specialist areas such as collections, conservation and marketing. They get practical experience of a real work environment. I know it's a great all-round experience because it's how I started 25 years ago."
From spring 2008 the Wordsworth Trust is restructuring its intern programme. "They will have the same holistic experience," says Cowton, "but will all start more or less together instead of having everyone starting and finishing at different times. This way they can work on complete projects and get an understanding of how the whole process works.
"It's essentially a business and you have to learn to treat your visitors well - if they didn't come, we would cease to exist. It's about survival for an independent museum."
At the opposite end of the scale, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London employs about 120 front-of-house staff. The V&A has seen a huge increase in visitors over the past six years - from less than 1 million in 2000 to over 2.5 million in the last financial year.
A large restructuring in 2003 brought together the many different visitor services roles including security, welcome, ticketing, and information provision.
"This was to create one flexible multifunctional workforce who understand and connect with the museum on many levels," explains James Wilson, training and development consultant at the V&A.
"An important part of the development is a desire to provide the best possible experience for all of our visitors and maintain standards as visitor numbers increase."
Gallery service staff receive regular training. "Every member of gallery services is encouraged to take up an NVQ in heritage care and visitor service, customer service and management," says Wilson.
The V&A's 50 in-house courses include front-of-house development; access and diversity; health and safety and security. The museum has also developed an online training portal in collaboration with Ashridge Business School.
Wilson says that it is vital that gallery service staff are fully engaged with the vision and mission of the V&A. "They are one of the most direct forms of marketing and influencing that we have. Hence the amount of investment and trust we give them."
Deborah Mulhearn is a freelance journalist.
A Welcome Change: Improving your Front-of-House is a one-day event developed by the Museums Association and Renaissance North West on 6 February at Manchester Art Gallery
